Monkeys immune to Ebola virus after fast-acting injection

Washington Times ^ | Thursday, August 7, 2003

[JohnHuang2]

Federal scientists have developed a fast-acting, single-shot Ebola vaccine that makes monkeys immune to the lethal virus six times faster than an earlier version.

If the same approach works in humans, it could control or prevent outbreaks of the rare infection, which causes high fever, severe pain and bleeding from the eyes as blood vessels collapse. Nearly everyone who is infected dies within a few days.

[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, August 7, 2003

Quote of the Day by Arthur Wildfire! March

[krb]

That is amazingly good news, but man I wouldn't want to be one of the first human test subjects. You know, just in case :-)

[shadowman99]

There's an old joke
"I'm wearing zebra repelant"
"There's no zebra around here!"
"see, it works"


If this is something the US cooked up, it will be years before the FDA approves it's use. Even then, how sure can you be that it works? Ebola is quite rare.

Also, if there were an outbreak tomorrow and people stated begging for a cure, can you imagine the outcry when the CDC says "this is no ready for human use"

I guess I'm just saying we shouldn't get too worked up over this yet.

[RWG]

Federal scientists have developed a fast-acting, single-shot Ebola vaccine...for a disease that is 'rare' and as far as I can remember the only cases widely reported were localized to Africa, how come people are already working on a vaccine?

[xm177e2]

Federal scientists have developed a fast-acting, single-shot Ebola vaccine...for a disease that is 'rare' and as far as I can remember the only cases widely reported were localized to Africa, how come people are already working on a vaccine?

Because Ebola is a potential biological warfare agent. It has a high fatality rate and acts quickly. It's a very nasty disease to come down with (it causes bleeding from most every orifice in your body). It doesn't spread as quickly as some other diseases (such as the flu or tuberculosis, which spread into the air through breathing). It spreads through the bodily fluids that leak out. It would not be hard to contain an outbreak in America if it was just spreading naturally, but if terrorists were spreading it it would not be hard to infect lots of people in a short amount of time.

Money we spend researching infectious diseases is money well-spent.